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SALT LAKE CITY — Crystal Pickering aged out of foster care at age 18 and faced multiple barriers to reaching typical teenage milestones such as graduating from high school, let alone attempting college or earning a degree.
"In the middle of my senior year of high school, I was on my own. I got a full-time job at Taco Bell while taking public transportation to school, so I could pay my rent. I faced multiple challenges," she said.
Pickering got pregnant and married at age 20. Her then-husband was in the military, which took them to Louisiana and Alaska. They divorced and she returned to Washington state with two kids in tow.
She resumed attending church and decided to join a dating site for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where she met her current husband.
"As things got serious and my lease was up, I moved down here," she said.
For a while, she was a stay-at-home mom and ran a business.
"I have always known that I wanted to do something bigger with my life than just repeat the cycles that I grew up watching over and over and over again and still see," she said.
With her husband's encouragement, she earned a bachelor's degree from Utah Valley University in information technology management.
Next, the mother of five, with the support and backing of family, built on that accomplishment, recently earning a Master of Science degree in information technology management in March from Western Governors University.
Pickering's personal accomplishment dovetails a major milestone for WGU, the national online, nonprofit university. She was among 49,564 Western Governors University students who earned a record 50,168 bachelor's or master's degrees during the 2024 academic year from the national online, nonprofit university established in 1997.
Two-thirds of the graduates were from one or more underserved populations — students of color, first generation, rural or low income.
While each of those graduates has had their own journey, Pickering said they share a common bond: "It's 50,000 people whose lives will never be the same. They have given themselves the opportunity to further their career aspirations and their goals and change the course of their family's lives," said Pickering, who earned her master's degree while working full time for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Tabernacle Choir, where she is its technical program manager.
"In fact, I was finishing my capstone paper in the Philippines while they were on tour," she said.
While she had already earned a bachelor's degree, earning her master's degree showed her children the value of education and how it can change the trajectory of an individual's life.
"That's one of the main reasons why I did it, was to show my kids it's never too late," she said.
WGU President Scott Pulsipher said the university is "reinvigorating the pathway to opportunity and having an impact at scale."
The university's educational model, which is student-centric and personalized, "works," he said.
"We are positioning our graduates to start and advance careers in high-demand fields, meeting workforce needs and strengthening the vitality of their families and communities."
One of WGU's defining characteristics is that it offers degrees in four key areas: business, education, information technology and health professions, including nursing. There is high demand for skilled workers in each of those disciplines.
According to WGU, the university confers 5.2% of the bachelor's degrees in education nationally, which leads United States colleges and universities.
It also awards 5.5% of all bachelor's and master's degrees in nursing nationally and its cybersecurity program is now the largest in the country.
Joe Fuller, chairman of WGU's Board of Trustees, in a statement said that Western Governors University, since its inception, has "worked to create an engine of economic mobility that accommodates everyone, especially those traditionally left behind by higher education."
Fuller, a distinguished management professor at Harvard Business School and co-director of the school's Managing the Future of Work project, added, "It is now doing this at a scale no other institution matches, putting students from all backgrounds, circumstances and experiences on a trajectory for a better life. This is exactly the kind of momentum we need to energize our workforce and our communities."
WGU offers more than 80 certificate, bachelor's and master's degree programs in business, education, health and technology fields in all 50 states.
"We are helping our students live their best possible lives, on a personal and a professional level," Pulsipher said, "and this has generational impacts that ripple into the future. We also are providing employers with the highly skilled, work-ready and diverse talent desperately needed to maintain America's prosperity and its competitive edge."
Pickering said WGU gave her the flexibility to work full time and have meaningful time with her family.
"There's certain seasons of my life and certain times of the year where I have a lot more flexibility, and, you know, I can focus more. But during the holidays, I could pull back and not stress about finals and making sure I'm going to four classes. I was able to ebb and flow with my schedule," she said.
WGU currently serves nearly 176,000 students, which includes the addition of more than 126,000 new students over the past fiscal year — up nearly 30% over the previous year.
With its current rate of growth, Pulsipher said "it's very likely that WGU will be the first institution with more than a million living alumni." WGU currently has more than 340,000 alumni.
It's doubtful that the founding governors of Western Governors University, among them former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, Colorado Gov. Roy Romer and Wyoming Gov. Jim Geringer, "ever expected WGU'S impact to be so big and meaningful," he said.
"I think one of the most important things is, it should be telling everyone that the measure of quality in higher education should not be on the basis of how few you admit. It should probably be focused on how many lives have been able to be changed because of it," Pulsipher said.
